At any rate, what is clear is that the property rights of pipeline companies in Mexico are not secure. Because government cannot protect property, they are actually shutting lines down. And turning to slower, riskier, and more expensive modes of truck and rail.

Here in Canada, property rights are not protected so landowners can be expropriated by Ottawa and the provinces for energy transport projects.

Here in Canada, pipeline companies themselves do not even have property rights.

Which is why we have seen so many projects strangled by red tape, placed in suspended animation, or killed outright.

Worse, anti pipeline saboteurs routinely vandalize pipeline infrastructure putting local energy corridor residents -- pipeline landowners like you -- and the environment at risk. The punishment meted out by the courts in every case is never more than a slap on the wrist.

The absurd tragedy of course is that in Mexico -- one of Canada's major trading partners with whom our laws and regulations are very much harmonized -- thieves can build pipelines while north of the 49th, major companies can't.

Property rights would solve the problem in both countries. But for now, Canada remains much more like Mexico -- and Mexico more like Venezuela -- than the United States.